


Holdfast

by levendis



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Awkward Flirting, Bittersweet Ending, Episode Related, Nonbinary Character, Other, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-27
Updated: 2017-04-27
Packaged: 2018-10-24 12:07:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,491
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10741407
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/levendis/pseuds/levendis
Summary: "He fancied me..."





	Holdfast

The coordinates lead to where the TARDIS won’t go. She lands in a field instead, ten kilometers out. The Doctor opens the door to a black, starless sky, and a thicket of waist-high vegetation glowing a pale blue, waving slowly in what is probably not a wind.

 _Gravity_ , the TARDIS says. _Mind the gap_.

“Yes, yes, I know,” the Doctor snaps back. They step through the doorway and immediately flip over backwards, sailing gently arse-first into the ground. "No comments from the peanut gallery,” they yell, attempting to find the right-side-up in this place.

The stalks of grass (wheat? corn? kelp? one of those, maybe), having parted for them, now move softly but insistently back, buoying them to the surface. A brighter blue-white light where their skin makes contact. It’s like crowd-surfing, but with fewer sweaty, spiky people; more in the way of undulating tendrils. Slightly invasive tendrils - they have to fish one or five out from under their shirt, and wagging their finger has no obvious impact. They float in a spiral for a few minutes, moving gradually away from the TARDIS. And then the Directional Whatsit Mk III vibrates, and they say ‘thataway please’. Thataway they go. 

 

The plants start thinning two kilometers out, and growing taller. Or longer, depending on where Up is, the Doctor still isn’t entirely sure. They’re passed slowly and carefully plant to plant, the stalks bending gracefully. “Thanks,” they say every time they’re successfully deposited into a new set of hands. Or “Sorry”, and occasionally “Generally in humanoid cultures that area is considered a no-go zone.” 

Their internal clock ticks the seconds off. Minutes, hours. One kilometer out, it’s nearly pitch-black, just the faint glow of the tendrils supporting them. The ticking slows. And then - they stop.

“End of the road, huh,” they say, relearning how to stand on the ground. Or what is probably the ground, it’s an educated guess.

 _This is where we finish_ , the plant says.

“I knew you could talk. Are you shy, or just rude?”

 _There is nothing beyond this._ This one is taller, shaggier around the edges, brighter than the rest. And older, vastly older. Roots coming loose from the blackness.

“Tell me about it.” The Doctor swallows hard, staring into the void. The bottom of the ocean, the space between stars. Nothingness, endlessness. The Directional Whatsit buzzes in their pocket.

_You wish to travel into death._

“Apparently.”

The plant reaches out, a tendril wrapped lightly, hesitantly around the Doctor’s wrist. _We end_ , it says. The tendril splays, loosens, splits apart.

A million billion specks of light now clouding around them, supporting them. Brighter where they touch. The Doctor closes their eyes, and lets themself be carried.

 

* * *

 

This place is far too loud and crowded and underlit. Like emergency lighting, the darkness broken by flashes. But the Directional Whatsit Mk II led them here, so here they are. It’s warm enough, at least, even if it’s a moist people-warmth instead of the good dry warmth. All sweat and spit and blood and come.

“I’m looking for the lost key of Ispanz,” the Doctor announces, plopping into a seat at the bar. “A substantial reward offered for any information about its whereabouts.”

The man on their left looks pointedly away; the man on their right returns their gaze. And then gives them a slow, deliberate once-over.

“This isn’t a great place for exchanging information,” the one-who-looked-back yells, just barely audible over the thumping music. His head is appealingly glossy, even if it amplifies the disco lights in a sensory-overload sort of way.

“I know. It’s just my thing - ” The Doctor fishes the Directional Whatsit out of their pocket and waves it around. “It said to come here.”

“We could go somewhere else,” the man shouts. “Discuss, regroup, come back with a plan.”

In the brief flashes of light, the Doctor can see the man is smiling. Hopeful, and something else - something curious and slightly wrong - so they nod and stand up and walk off, with the assumption they’re being followed.

 

Outside the club is dark, but in an acceptable steady streetlamp way. Cold, but crisp. The Doctor pulls their array of jackets around them tightly. Hunched shoulders, feeling the DW2 buzz more strongly as the man approaches.

Now that they can look at him, minus most distractions, the slightly-wrong is more obvious.

“Perception filter,” they say, gesturing at themself.

“It looks good on you,” the man says.

“Thank you. But what I mean is - I know what it’s like, to not be what you present, so if you’d prefer to be yourself, I won’t run away.”

The man cocks his head at them, still smiling. “I believe you. But I’m happy like this. And besides, this way we have a shared language, even if it’s not our own. D'you like coffee?”

 

They wind up in a cafe, at an outside table, nursing twin cups of espresso. Humans, they’ll show up anywhere and open a restaurant.

“I’m the Doctor, by the way.”

“Going by occupation, are we? Well, then. I’m the Emperor, pleased to meet you.” The man - the Emperor - sticks his hand out.

Ah, the shaky-shaky thing. The Doctor offers their hand; the contact goes on a bit longer than usual, and there’s an odd sort of…caressing addition they’re not used to.

“Do you have a real name?” the Doctor asks.

“Yeah. You?”

“Yeah.”

They sit in semi-awkward silence for a while.

“Not a big fan of emperors, generally speaking,” the Doctor offers.

The Emperor shrugs. “Neither am I, but here I am. It’s not quite the right word, though, to be fair. Closest I can get. Maybe 'Protector’ would be better, not sure.”

“Same.”

Another semi-awkward silence.

“So how’d you pick the face.”

“It’s a reminder,” the Doctor says. “Of - it’s complicated. You?”

“I loved someone. Admired them.”

“So you became them? You realize that’s weird, yes?”

“Says the creature wearing a handsome man-suit around as some sort of elaborate to-do list,” the Emperor/Protector says. He sets his tiny cup down, gives the Doctor a searching look, and then leans across the table and cups the Doctor’s face. Waiting a few beats of is-this-alright. And then he kisses them, gently, slowly, before pulling back an inch and breathing carefully.

His eyes boring into theirs. “This thing you’re looking for. Does it have any other names?”

“Uh. Um. The Unseen, the Unknowable, the - ”

“And it looks like?”

The Doctor shrugs. “You can’t see it. It looks like nothing.”

The Protector’s expression goes all weird, like resigned and sad but in a sweet, accepting, nearly half-happy sort of way. “I hate it when the prophecies come true,” he whispers, and kisses the Doctor again. Lingering longer, like he’s trying to commit it to memory. He pulls back and pulls a face like he’s putting his public persona back on. “D'you have a pen?”

Several. The Doctor picks out a fountain pen with a nice bright-blue ink, and hands it over. The Protector grabs the pen and a napkin and scribbles some numbers down.

“You are a time traveler, yes?”

“Yes.”

“So you go here, and then, and you’ll find it. What you’re looking for. Is it important?”

“It’ll prevent the end of a world, so yeah, 'spose so.”

“That’s good, then.” The Protector stares at them, still with that sad/resigned/bittersweet look.

They won’t meet again, the Doctor realizes suddenly. After tonight. This is it. End of the line. Events will progress, this moment can’t last.

“Nice meeting you,” they say carefully.

“Nice meeting you.”

“Sorta wish it could be different.”

“Same. But it’s not.”

“It is what it is,” the Doctor says. They finish their espresso, and they attempt a smile, and then they leave, not looking behind them, heading off towards where they left the TARDIS.

 

* * *

 

The black is endless and oppressive, is pressing down. It’s here, somewhere. The DWIII rumbles in their pocket.

 _I will get you close to the edge of the field,_ the swarm says. _There will be darkness to travel through after that._

“That’s what a panic run is for,” the Doctor says. It’s here, it’s here, it’s - oh, it’s over there. They lean over and scoop it up and dump it into the special anomaly-containment unit/salsa jar before they have a chance to be scared.

They head back, the swarm - or cloud - or colony - or whatever drifting looser but still holding pattern around them. A kilometer away, they finally step out of the light.

 _This is where we end,_ the swarm says. _This is where we begin again._

The field is just barely visible on the horizon. Where the darkness stops. And here, where it will be pushed back, all those little lights spinning away from them.

“Thanks for the coffee,” the Doctor says.

They don’t get a response, as such, but there’s something like a nod, a _same here._ They nod back, and step out into the dark.


End file.
